Tag Archives: love

It is said with the best intentions by people who inadvertently caused someone emotional pain. You are trying your best to be kind and show compassion and say the right thing, but in my heartfelt opinion you are not fully taking responsibility for the actions that lead up to the hurt. Admitting you are sorry for the damage done to ones heart is only half of it. If it was not intentional, your choices and actions that lead to someone’s pain should still be recognized. Telling someone “I’m sorry I hurt you” is like telling someone you are sorry they are human.

If you truly want to be sorry, be sorry for what you did or how you went about your decisions. For example, I would say “I’m sorry I punched you in the face” or “I’m sorry I never told you I was pining over an ex throughout our relationship even though I told you convincingly I was completely over them.”

Look I get it, my ex wanted to be the man who could love someone like me. He felt something for me, he felt a love there, but it wasn’t “THE love”. I know it took time for him to come to that conclusion and he was honest with me when he figured it all out. I know I’m a strong personality, I know I am not typical or normal, I know I am unique and weird and I love that about myself. I just ask that if you aren’t sure and are confused about your feelings for me, you clue me in and take a “break” or slow down so I can make my own decision on whether I want to continue to be with you to see if we are meant to be together, or not. It’s not up to only you in a partnership to make that decision secretly, otherwise your partner feels like the rug is being pulled out from beneath them once the light bulb goes off in your head and heart. If you truly want to be a “nice guy” you would be communicative early on before an emotional investment has been made. It’s not rocket science, it’s common dating courtesy.

I refuse to tell myself I’m lucky I even got an answer or the truth, because no one, man or woman, deserves to have their heart toyed with or have someone just disappear on them after cultivating a loving relationship. That’s what can create tough, cold, bitter humans and no matter how hard they try not to have a new love pay the price of an ex, it’s really…really…difficult. I know I’ll have trouble trusting the next guy, but I am not the kind of girl to let my heart harden. I will just keep the wall up as long as needed, and the right guy will patiently wait for it to come tumbling down.

It’s time I crawl out from under my offline rock and get back into the blogging hemisphere. I have much appreciation for those who continue to blog through the valleys of life, and I hope one day to be able to get to that point without turning into an Eeyore type personality.

Now it’s time to brace yourself and read a list of things I’ve learned over the past 6 months. The bottom line is when someone you unconditionally love takes advantage of your kindness and betrays your trust, I found there are ways to move forward.

1. Trust.

Trust yourself. Trust your instincts. If you don’t have tangible evidence or proof but something going on in your relationship or your world in general doesn’t feel right, trust in your emotional intelligence. Hopefully you can distinguish control or abandonment issues from gut feelings. Sometimes I can’t until it’s too late and hindsight has become 20/20. But damnit, I am a smart woman. I am determined to trust myself more from this point on.

2. Know.

Know that you are stronger than you may think. Know that if you are not happy, you deserve better. Know that your happiness should come before anyone elses and if someone is directly effecting your own mental health you must not ignore it or sweep it under the rug no matter how often the other person refuses to confront the issue. I do not mean to say you should be a selfish douchenozzle and fail to empathize with others. I have learned that you won’t be able to get that warm and fuzzy feeling that comes with helping others if you aren’t taking care of your own emotional, physical, and spiritual well being. It’s been a battle for me, and after 35 years I’ve realized I need to stop preaching and start believing.

3. Feel & Deal.

Feel the good, the bad, and the ugly and don’t put a time limit on it . Years ago a good friend told me that you need to feel the hurt someone inflicted upon you so you never forget how that particular person effected you. I am someone who gives everyone the benefit of the doubt, so this is advice I personally take with a grain of salt as every situation is different. But I often refer to those words when a person leads me into a gut wrenching wave of hurt. I’m also a type of person who wants to deal with any negative situation fast and furious because my rational side is saying MOVE ON, don’t be a Debbie Downer, while my sensitive side is clearly not listening. If you are feeling great one day it’s completely understandable to not feel so great the next day. I’ve had to hear that a few times from my loving friends over the past few months after I showed much frustration over my roller coaster emotions. I repeat, there is no magic time limit! Ride the emotional wave, call on others for support, and the people who truly care about you will never make you feel like you cannot reach out to them or that your feelings aren’t justified. If you must be an island but cannot find emotional ease, look to yourself to figure out why you try to do it all on your own instead of leaning on someone, whether it be a professional, family member, clergy, or friend.

Deal with the crappy negative emotions now so you can move to the beautiful and positive emotions later. Be patient. I’m not a patient person when it comes to myself, so this is especially difficult for me to accept. Deal with it so you can eventually put it behind you and possibly turn your trunks of baggage into a few carry on bags.

4. Cleanse.

Cleanse your life of emotional vampires. There are 5 types of emotional vampires: Narcissistic, Victim, Controller, Constant talker, and Drama Queen. I may sound like a drama queen myself, but I recently cleansed my life of a couple of huge emotional vampires. These types of people are the worst kind of abusers because most don’t see any harm in their actions and there is no physical scarring. There is plenty of psychological damage that can be done though if you are not self aware, careful, and trusting of your own instincts.

5. Forgive.

Forgiveness is an act for yourself, not others. In some cases it’s your “self” that you must learn to forgive! In all the research I’ve done over the past month in trying to understand if I’ve forgiven a specific person, I’ve come to the conclusion that there is no timeline. If you feel that you’ve forgiven someone but still get angered at the thought of what happened, you probably have not truly forgiven them and that’s ok! Forgiveness does not make their actions any less excusable and it does not make you a bad person if you are unable to forgive! There may be specific things you deem unforgivable but true forgiveness cannot be forced. Be genuine with your forgiveness. Find it in your heart to forgive somebody for making a poor decision, or find it in your soul to forgive yourself for making a mistake (during this past relationship I made the mistake of letting my health and goals fall by the wayside, failing to put myself first, which I plan to write about in a future post). You will then find yourself free of any hold the person had on you. Afterwards, you can truly begin to move on.

6. Love.

Love yourself, love others, keep loving even after your heart has been smashed into a million pieces. Love those who appreciate, support, comfort, educate, respect , and are kind. I’ll never stop loving and falling in love. It can get quite exhausting after being taken advantage of more than once, but I believe in Karma and in the power of positive thinking. There are many degrees of love and I think everyone deserves love and happiness, even the emotional vampires. I’ve learned to be a little more selective to whom I give my love but I will not give up on it’s amazing power. Sometimes you come across a bad seed in a world full of good ones, but don’t let them sour your spirit.

7. Learn.

Take your experience and learn from how it all unfolded. My goal is to take negative heart crushing experiences and grow from every single detail without ending up a bitter old lonely cat lady or changing my trusting and gregarious nature. I’ve come across the paths of people with many more years on this earth who have a delusional version of reality and truth and may never learn from their mistakes. On the one hand it makes me sad, on the other hand it’s really none of my concern and I can continue to lead a fulfilling life without their skewed influence. A life I love, and a life I’ll only live once (since I’m unfortunately not a cat) so I might as well make it a happy and healthy life.

My Valentine’s Day included a home made card for my sweetheart, a love themed fruit salad, and the short and humorous South Park Documentary “6 Days to Air“. I took about 15 minutes after work to pick up seedless black grapes (my ongoing addiction!), cherries, strawberries, and red delicious apples. It took me less than 10 minutes to cut up these few items into a medium sized bowl and make this sweet simple gift for my Valentine. It took maybe 10-15 minutes to make a card that I was proud to give away to someone I care about. It wasn’t perfect, it wasn’t complicated, it was just cute and from me! All in all, it took me a little over 30 minutes to prepare for my Valentine celebration and i feel satisfied about the results. I’m notorious in my family for just stopping in at the Grocery Store to pick up an item for a party, but lately I feel the need to create in order to fill this ingenious void I’ve felt for a while. I’ve felt that need as of late and have started oil painting and crafting to facilitate this soulful want in addition to getting involved with local arts programs. Last night I was reminded it doesn’t have to take hours to create a lovely food or non-food artistic presentation. All it takes is a little inspiration, quick planning, and thoughtful execution 30-45 minutes a day or more if time permits. I can do that.

Holidays and sweets go hand in hand. Valentine’s day is one of the many holidays pushing sweet treats and candies and chocolates in excess. The biggest chocolate heart is supposed to show your loved one how much you love them. That irks me. It’s not the quantity, it’s the quality! While at the grocery store last night I was surrounded by sweet temptations because of today’s holiday. Do I love all of those things? Heck yes! But, in order to support this healthy lifestyle of mine, I came up with two options to battle the Valentine expectation of sweets for your ‘sweet’. One is obviously healthier than the other, while the other one deals with making the right choice as far as portion size while at the grocery store.

1. Heart Shaped Fruits

If you happen to have just 15-20 minutes to prepare something sweet and healthy this Valentines day evening, then I’d recommend the simple act of cutting up fruit like honeydew, melon, apple, etc. into heart shapes (using a heart shaped cookie cutter is recommended if you aren’t confident in your carving skills) and piercing them with a BBQ skewers as pictured above. It’s not only delicious and healthy, it’s simple and adorable! Or get creative with it, make it your own Valentine presentation! There are so many healthy alternative ideas for holiday treats thanks to the wonderful internet that houses blogs like Sincerely, Paula where I first saw this recipe and where she lists a plethora of other healthy Valentine food options including both sweet and savory. Obviously, the best choice health wise would be if you chose fruit instead of chocolates as your Valentine sweet. I’d rather take a little extra time to create something unique on a holiday where store bought chocolates and cards are the norm, but I know that is not always possible when life gets in the way. If you do not have the time to make something simple and unique for your loved one, it’s understandable for those who have very busy lifestyles. This brings me to option #2.

2. Freshly Baked Mini Cupcakes

I squeal with delight whenever I see mini cupcakes. Most mini cupcakes are around 100 calories each. Most larger cupcakes are around 300 calories, give or take depending on ingredients and freshly baked or packaged. This means you can have just one mini cupcake for 100 calories if that’s all you can afford in your calorie count, or 3 mini cupcakes for the same calories as one larger one. Besides the fact that you can easily pick up the better choice of mini cupcakes in most any grocery store on your way home tonight, mini cupcakes are just cute! If you are someone who cannot have the box of 9 or 12 mini cupcakes in your house tempting you, opting for one larger cupcake from a bakery instead of a prepackaged 6 may be better. Purchasing one large cupcake instead of an entire ice cream cake or a box of chocolates can mean so much more on a holiday like today. To me, sharing something small and sweet with someone you love is extremely special and meaningful and intimate. It shows you care about their health but you don’t want to miss out on the small joys in life, and you want to enjoy these things together. Who wouldn’t love receiving just one adorable mini cupcake along with a lovely personal written note or spoken word of affection from your sweetheart? Someone without a soul, that’s who! 🙂